Daniel Domscheit-Berg [right] used to be Wikileaks second-in-command. Disillusioned he left the site. Now he's founded OpenLeaks and is calling out Wikileaks' recent questionable behavior. (Source: AFP)

Most would agree that there is a need for whistleblowing outlets in
the media. Without the scrutiny of exposé reporting, there are serious
questions concerning whether the civilian government, military, and corporate
businesses would exchange integrity for potential foul gains.

With media shifting online, the web seems a natural home for a
whistleblowing endeavor. But the real question is -- who should be
entrusted with such a vital mantle

Criticism From Within

Daniel Domscheit-Berg, like Wikileaks' notorious founder,
Julian Assange, was a member of a high-profile early hacking community.
Whereas Mr. Assange frequented the Zen/Pacific Island servers in Australia, Mr.
Domscheit-Berg was a member of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) in Germany.

When Mr. Assange looked to open Wikileaks, Mr. Domscheit-Berg
was already familiar with famous Australian who had committed cyber-crimes
under the named "Mendax". He agreed to participate in the
project, and for a time assumed the position of both spokesperson for the site
and its number-two commander behind Mr. Assange.

But in recent months, the German technology expert became troubled with
Mr. Assange's leadership and Wikileaks’lack of transparency. He also indicates
that recent leaks were badly botched and
questionable.

In response he has created a new site, with firm ethics guidelines,
dubbed OpenLeaks.

Leaks: Who to Trust?

When it comes to whistle blowing, the question of who to trust is a
critical one. After all, it's far too easy for international
cyberespionage to masquerade under the guise of "whistle blowing" as
some have accused Wikileaks of intentionally or unintentionally doing.

Ideally a whistleblower must have a certain degree of respect for the
government or institution he's exposing. Or perhaps more aptly, they
should desire to improve it through their actions, rather than destroy it.

Mr. Assange in recent interviews espouses such morals, but his
writings from the 1990s reveal a man who's firmly anti-government, to the point
of advocating anarchy. In a 1997 book, Underground: Tales of Hacking,
Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier, which Mr. Assange did
research for, he voices such opinions.

In the book, he and the author Suelette Dreyfus write:

As he quietly backed out of the system, wiping away his footprints as
he tip-toed away, Mendax [Assange] thought about what he had seen. He was
deeply disturbed that any hacker would work for the US military.

Hackers,
he thought, should be anarchists, not hawks.

Such a statement could be construed as off-the-cuff, but at least one
source who was a member of Mr. Assange's Australian hacking circle, who did not
want to be named, confirmed that Mr. Assange had advocated such anarchic
ideals.

And the recent leaks from Wikileaks certainly seemed more of a
bid to destabilize U.S. foreign policy, rather than merely call it out for
wrongdoing. While the blame for the publication of recent leaks like a list of top targets for terrorists to harm
U.S. national security rests partly on cooperating publishing organizations,
such as The New York Times, one has to question why Wikileaks
published them in the first place.

If its goal was merely to report wrongdoing, why was it releasing
loads of cables, many of which contained embarrassing or dangerous secrets
(vulnerable locations, undisclosed illnesses of world leaders, or political
tensions) but seemingly had little to do with wrongdoing?

OpenLeaks: New Leaks Site, New Perspective

Mr. Domscheit-Berg left Wikileaks some time ago -- and he is
not alone. In the last year or two, particularly after the recent round
of leaks, many of the site's top volunteers have abandoned it, questioning
whether the site is abandoning its morals for a darker agenda.

Mr. Domscheit-Berg sums up the sentiments of these former volunteers, stating, "In these last months, the
organization [Wikileaks] has not been open any more, it lost its open-source
promise."

When asked about Mr. Assange's leadership in a recent interview, he
comments, "It has weakened the organization. [T]oo much focused on
one person, and one person is always much weaker than an organization."

He and his fellow volunteers have launched a new site OpenLeaks
website, which is now live (www.openleaks.org). The site has not yet
published any leaked information, but plans to begin by writing short essays
analyzing information it has obtained.

For his part, Mr. Domscheit-Berg promises more transparency and
discretion. Whereas Wikileaks does not disclose details on its
leadership structure or finances, OpenLeaks plans on publishing reports
detailing its procedures.

Similarly, Mr. Domscheit-Berg says that if he happens upon a treasure trove of information, like the
illegally obtained U.S. State Department cables that were recently published by
Wikileaks, that he would be more selective about what is passed to the
media.

He says that by carefully reviewing the material, you kill two birds
with one stone. First, you ensure that each leaked document really
necessitates publication under whistle-blowing grounds, allowing extraneous
documents to be eliminated. And secondly, by taking a slower, more
considered approach, OpenLeaks hopes to not burn through its supply of leaked
info as Wikileaks is thought to have.

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Seriously if they are going to filter what to publish and what not then there's no difference between openleaks and any other news website.

Anyway the governments work for the people, why should they then keep secrets from them?... the only good reason for that is that politicians think most people are too stupid to understand politics and instead on educating them they prefer to keep them in the shadows.It's well known that a chain of command only works when the people under you don't question your actions, the moment they do you have no room for "mistakes" and that's not a good thing for... politicians!

quote: Anyway the governments work for the people, why should they then keep secrets from them?

Because people know jack about the really important issues? Providing them with the gritty details will just result in skewed opinions anyway.It's a case of "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth."

So, to protect them, give them no information? Last I checked the country was founded upon transparency and a government run by the people, not the other way around. To say people don't know anything about the issues is a blanket statement and is not for any one person to decide.

It is a common human reaction to take criticism as persecution. Look at any government, religion or charlatan(bit of overlap with the previous two, I know) and you will see the scape goat of persecution used instead of actually answering for the things they have done. Of course I have to pass some of the blame to the idiot populace that dominates our society for their willingness to be led astray.

Remember that one of the leaks from Wikileaks was the video of the helicopter shooting unarmed people and them killing the wounded (against the Geneva Conventions). They lied about it and said they didn't know how they died. While I am not for the weird leaks they let out about things they said about foreign leaders and so on as they don't really constitute cover ups, maybe they shouldn't write these things down or even say them if they are so embarrassing.

And so many others. It's just people would much rather watch Oprah instead and act shocked when this info gets into their faces. And by then, it must be government wrongdoing or some conspiracy, right?

I see you don't understand the difference between a country and people. I have the freedom to be as secretive as I want with anything, that is unless I'm under scrutiny of a court and then guess what? I have to answer honestly and completely or risk perjury.

The government is not a person, it does not have the right to privacy or anything of that nature. It is OUR government, therefore we have every right to know what goes on at any time we wish. The key thing here is a government for the people, by the people. It is our possession to do with what we wish, not some animate creature that has rights.

You may wish for a secretive government in thoughts that they know what is good for you, but considering the populace and the people in charge I have seen, I am not very comfortable with that, how about yourself?

quote: I see you don't understand the difference between a country and people.

Which difference is that? A country is the people. By your own admission, you have your own secrets. If somehow tomorrow you'll be a member of the government, do you honestly expect me to believe you'll start broadcasting every single conversation you have at work?A country or a government is not a different species, you know.

This knee jerk assumption that the only reason secrecy in government exists is to cover up wrong doing is as naïve as it is stupid. Having personally been privy to national secrets in the past; none of it was appropriate for public consumption and the release of such information would only have benefited one group of people that being the enemies of the free world. If you are an anarchist and anti-freedom then I can see your side of the argument.

quote: Seriously if they are going to filter what to publish and what not then there's no difference between openleaks and any other news website.

Anyway the governments work for the people, why should they then keep secrets from them?... the only good reason for that is that politicians think most people are too stupid to understand politics and instead on educating them they prefer to keep them in the shadows.

No, it's because free societies like Western democracies don't exist in a vacuum. They're competing with other not-so-free societies like China. Ideally, the government could reveal all its secrets to just its citizens. But the problem is that's impossible to achieve in practice. If you reveal all the government's secrets to its citizens, it's inevitable that those secrets will make their way to non-citizens.

When you spill all of a free society's secrets to the rest of the world, you're putting the free society at a disadvantage to the not-so-free society. You're also validating the reasons why the not-so-free society feels a not-so-free society is better - because they don't show their cards to everyone in the poker game of international relations. So indiscriminately revealing secrets will cause free societies to lose influence while not-so-free societies gain influence. In other words, it will result in less freedom, not more.

In this environment, for leaked secrets to be a positive for free societies, the leaks have to be limited to exposing corruption. That way the free society can clean up the corruption and become stronger. Someone needs to go through the leaks, decide which parts are rooting out real corruption, and which parts would just put the free society at a disadvantage to the not-so-free societies. Most journalistic organizations are pretty good at this. Unfortunately, Wikileaks seems to be one of those who share your misguided belief that there is no such thing as a good secret.

You're trying to argue that a society which keeps no secret is superior and (more importantly) capable of self-preservation in a universe with lots of different societies which keep varying degrees of secrets, some downright hostile to your society's existence. But just saying it's so doesn't make it so. All you've done is made a completely unsubstantiated claim. You're going to have to come up with a lot of reasoning and data to back up your hypothesis.

quote: If you reveal all the government's secrets to its citizens, it's inevitable that those secrets will make their way to non-citizens.

Hiding things from your citizens will not stop others from knowing them using other means, I don't have any doubt that China knows more about the US dirty secrets than anyone else.

quote: When you spill all of a free society's secrets to the rest of the world, you're putting the free society at a disadvantage to the not-so-free society.

Then why the USSR went down?... in the end you can't keep your people in the shadow forever. China is going strong and will keep going, not cause they are somewhat more "not-so-free" but cause they have a huge population, lots of raw resources and a huge country, there's plenty of democracies that are also becoming stronger, but hey feel free to think otherwise.

quote: Someone needs to go through the leaks, decide which parts are rooting out real corruption,

Someone like your government?... the moment you say someone it's over your system can be corrupt, your so called machine against corruption will be used and abused to fit the agenda of someone. And no, most journalistic organizations are not fit for this, the connections between the news channels and the politicians is no big news today.I'm still laughing my ass off when I think of Jessica Lynch...

"You're trying to argue that a society which keeps no secret is superior."I'm not trying I'm saying it secrets are the root of all evils, the single fact that there's only one non democratic country that is doing good proves me right.

Actually, Strund, I would have to say that a government that keeps no secrets, except for very short periods when operations are ongoing that would be endangered by a lack of secrecy, IS better and the best system a country could have.

People forget that we, the United States citizenry, are supposed to be the employers of the government, with the right to know everything that they are doing except in those very few cases listed above where operations would be endangered by a lack of secrecy, and only until those operations are over.

There is no reason for secrets that last 50, 60, 100 years or more! NONE!The only people who think there is an reason for that have been brainwashed with American Exceptionalism and don't want to have to monitor what the government is doing and think about what they are doing in our name.

Strunf, I agree totally. I can understand government having to have secrets for VERY SHORT PERIODS when operations are ongoing, but after that? Simply declassify everything and redact to protect the identities of people and release EVERYTHING!

There is no reason why government should have secrets from us, who are supposed to be the employers of government officials and even the President of the United States and Congress.

And I suppose you also think that the >2000 mirror sites are all owned by foreign governments too? To me it sounds like they have plenty of supporters and any governments supporting Wikileaks would eventually get their fingers burned. How much would such government be willing to pay to keep their support secret?

But then again, aluminum foil makes lovely hats... Just something you should think about.

I don't think that Wikileaks is really focused on media spotlight. They haven't released EVERYTHING like they were accused of doing, and they have tried to redact as best they could, without the help of the United States (which they requested, by the way).

Wikileaks is about as focused on media attention and spotlight as I am when I am doing some of my silly stunts on skates.... i.e. not at all.

Generally I support whistle blowing which exposes wrongdoing and I support a general principle of transparency in government. As long as Wikileaks was an agent for allowing whistle blowing to expose wrong doing I would support it. However I feel very ambivalent about the leaking of a seeming vast number of miscellaneous US diplomatic documents. It seems as if it has been done simply because it can be done. Almost no wrong doing has been exposed. All that has been achieved is the embarrassment of the US government and a lot of other people. For what purpose?

Of course reading other people's secrets is juicy especially if it involves someone you don't like. But it's not a very high principle.

What has been exposed is the sort of candid secret internal commentary that the diplomatic service of any country engages in. By definition a certain level of secrecy is a requisite for any government and for any diplomacy, and I know from my own time in public service that there are occasions that I have made candid comments which were very much not intended for any sort of public consumption. I have in writing called people assholes, untrustworthy and incompetent. I made such honest and at times brutal comments in order to improve public service but if my comments had been made public it would have been destructive and distractive, it would not have made good governance more likely it would have made it less likely.

It is essential for good diplomacy that people working inside the diplomatic services are free to offer what they think are true but nevertheless potentially embarrassing comments in the knowledge that their comment will remain confidential. I fear that if people in diplomatic services start to worry that their comments will be made public or leaked then all that will happen is that people will make comments they know to be false or less true but which they also know will be less sensational if leaked. That's not good for diplomacy or government.

Imagine if every painful stage of the private negotiations slowing building the Northern Irish peace process, every concession or movement of the parties concerned, had been immediately leaked. Would that have been helpful or progressive? If one thinks that the principle of transparency trumps all other considerations then the answer would have to be yes. I do not think that and I am glad that the Irish peace negotiations could for a long time mature in secret.

As to the attacks being made on Wikileaks - what did they expect? It is surely a simple principle of life that if you attack someone then one should expect them to fight back. Wikileaks chose to mount a significant attack on the US and lot of other governments around the world. It did so for reasons I cannot see are particularly progressive. What is progressive or useful about publishing a detailed list of targets considered to be vulnerable to terrorist attack? What good is done by doing such a thing? Wikileaks attacks have done a great deal of damage and now those they have attacked, who are very powerful and now very pissed off, have counterattacked. Is any one shocked?

None of the newspapers appear to be being attacked or threatened so the freedom of the press does not seem to be an issue here. Personally I think the behaviour of newspapers like the Guardian has been a bit shabby. Publishing all this material just seems to me to be the liberal broadsheet equivalent of the tabloid press taking photographs of a celebrity cheating on their wife or husband. It sells newspapers but is it a particularly good thing to do?

I defend the right of newspapers to publish secrets whose publication is in the public interest. I do not support the right of newspapers to publish any secret, no mater how damaging or hurtful or which achieve no greater good, just because they can. Newspapers have rights but they also have responsibilities. As I have said currently there seems to be no major attacks on the newspapers who published the material, other than condemnation by other media.

I fear that all this episode has done is discredit whistle blowing, damage a lot of painfully built diplomatic relationships and probably destroyed Wikileaks.

Tony, the fact is that government officials are employed by the American people (in America) and the people in the country whose government they work for.

There is no reason why they should be able to have any secrets, nor hide any information, from their people except for VERY short periods when operations are ongoing.At most, for a time period of 1 year even then.

Allowing our government to have secrets allows things like the Tuskegee Experiments, My Lai, the Bay of Pigs, etc. to go on.

This OpenLeaks at first sounded like a great idea. Competition in the realm of publishing that which the puppet masters of the world would rather keep us perpetually ignorant of.

Can we really believe that these cables have really been the first time that terrorist organizations or enemies of state have seen anything like this? I find it doubtful that countries such as N. Korea and China are just now, for the first time, becoming aware of this stuff. Surely they have spy agencies all over the world that gives them this kind of information. If a simple member of the DOD could access these cables, I cannot help but think that other simple and compromised individuals also had access to these cables and more intelligently possessed the contents of these cables for the nations for which they worked.

Even if this is not the case, I am certain that the terrorist nations of the world have their own lists of want-to-bomb targets around the world. The list that Wikileaks let go of may or may not be the same. However, those who *live* in these areas, those of us known as the public, may have been woefully unaware that they were living in a what may be construed as the virtual lip of a volcano, are thought to be unworthy of such information?

This competitive site sounds very hollow to me. I don't give a damn about essays and opinions as much as I do the source of those essays and opinions. What Wikileaks did was the antithesis of this type of document. They were supposed to release the works without throwing in their slanted opinions about one thing or another.

Openleaks is not going to be any real competition to Wikileaks. I was hoping it would be. However, it's clear from this article (and perhaps it's wrong - one may hope), that it's not going to be worth wasting time on. On the other hand, I read this article, and I know very well before reading it that it's going to be full of hateful spite and opinion.

"If even a fraction of the leaking sites that are beginning to surface prove credible and secure, then WikiLeaks may end up having an even larger impact than the government- and business-shaking leaks it’s already revealed; It may have planted the seeds for an entire new generation of secret-spilling sites."

quote: U.S Government probably gave him alot of cash or threatened him too.

I think that's pretty paranoid... I don't think most in the U.S. gov't would /like/ this site either. Besides he left Wikileaks before the latest conflict, anyhow, so your suggestion is pretty doubtful.

Really, the bottom line here is: Do you honestly think a self-proclaimed anarchist is the best person to be "whistleblowing" on the government?

That's like asking a medical litigation lawyer to write the laws on how doctors who commit malpractice should be punished.

I think Wikileaks is a good concept, but the site has lost is rationality and objectivity in its rush to publish "damaging" information on the U.S.

That's the key difference between traditional exposé journalism and the beast Wikileaks let itself become. New outlets have been doing what Wikileaks claims to invented for the last 100 years or more. But most of those doing it are very patriotic and are releasing information not to damage their country, but to improve it. I think its concerning that at least some of the info Wikileaks has recently published appears aimed more at damaging the U.S. than keeping it honest.

You can argue semantics all day, but leaking lists of terrorism targets or the health status of foreign leaders is NOT whistleblowing and NOT the disclosure of wrong-doing in any substantial form.

I'm very interested in how this site develops, and I think true supporters of democracy and open information should back it tentatively.

quote: Maybe, maybe not, but be careful with your terminology: It's not Domscheit-Berg or Assange blowing the whistle - it's those who provide the info to the outlet (think Manning).

Yes, but it is Assange/Domscheit-Berg that are GIVING them the whistle . Without this platform, this info never would have been released in mass for better or worse.

The responsibility of publication rests largely with publisher. If DailyTech published that carpets caused autism, we would be responsible for the effects of this misinformation, even if a certain doctor had passed it on to us. After all, we approved it.

Having a discerning and objective organization is fundamental to operating any respectable whistleblowing operation (or news organization in general, for that matter).

That's objectivity arguably has been compromised by Wikileaks.

Manning, for his part, like many whistleblowers wasn't the most unbiased source. He was upset about his sexual identity and a recent demotion. Hardly the type of person to make a level-headed decision.

Thus the responsibility of what/how much to publish fell on the receiver (Assange), who I believe abused this position due to his own personal animosity towards government authority.

Some of the leaked info arguably should have been published, but not all of it. That is the key issue here.

Further, the publication of extraneous and damaging information was arguably not accidental. If someone hits you with their car and you're injured that's reckless, but not necessarily premeditated assault. But if you just fired them, now there's a motive.

Likewise, Assange was a self-proclaimed anarchist (motive) which would explain why he published certain documents that transcended the respectable profession of whistleblowing, taking it into the unsavory realm of trying to injure a foreign government (the act).

quote: Yes, but it is Assange/Domscheit-Berg that are GIVING them the whistle . Without this platform, this info never would have been released in mass for better or worse.

If Wikileaks is a whistle, then Dailytech is a megaphone, and you can buy a whistle at the grocery store. I never would have heard of anything on Wikileaks without Dailytech, and you can publish on the internet pretty easily these days.

It's a bit silly to think that without Wikileaks, Manning could not have leaked those documents. Heck, he could have put the stuff on Wikipedia.

Technically, he couldn't have. Wikipedia is not a primary source of information- they merely collect information from primary sources into comprehensive articles on their site. It would have had to be posted elsewhere first, then linked back from Wiki.

With that rational you would not have known who was elected if it wasn't for CNN.

Wikileaks has caused quite the stir and become the largest most well known "whistleblowing" (and I use that loosely) site on the web. Dailytech just happens to be the venue for which you learned of them.

DT did not discover a hidden shady section of the web and I am sure many more people know about wikileaks than dailytech at this point in that respect.

And Jason I have to say I agree with your posts in response to the article as well. +1!

quote: DT did not discover a hidden shady section of the web and I am sure many more people know about wikileaks than dailytech at this point in that respect.

I do not fault dailytech, they are just reporting the news. But they help to disseminate the information that was leaked by doing so. The point is, the leaker is the problem, not the website. If there were no Wikileaks, Manning could still easily have leaked info. So realistically, who cares about Wikileaks?

Its a 2 party argument. The information was released twice: once to the press and once FROM the press. The person leaking should not be doing so but we should no be providing or encouraging a media outlet for him either. Whistleblowers need an outlet, but this was an integrity failure for both parties which cost lives. Clearly there was none at either checkpoint.

Sadly this could be used by politicians to leverage more rules and regulation of the internet (aka "safeguards") that will ruin the liberties of the many for the actions of the few.

this is the best that could happened with this whole wikileaks situation. more and more secure outlet for everyone to upload information anonymously. i wish all news organization in the world have a system that allows everyone to upload anything securely and anonymously (if bradley manning didn't blab about what he did no one would know that he leaked all that data. wikileaks really do keep their promise of anonimity and security in data upload).

how about dailytech started it? you guys can build a secure system so that everyone can upload anything anonymously. maybe you can get a pre alpha build of windows 8 uploaded by a proud microsoft engineer. or a game that hasn't yet released or honeycomb android (or maybe even the next version after that). who knows. that would make you guys really cutting edge. let's see what you do with that kind of power in your hands.

Your publishing analogy is flawed. Wikileaks didnt publish them. It gave its documents to the Guardian, Der Spiegel, the NY Times, etc, who did.

Following the reasoning of your analogy, wouldnt the publisher be the newspapers, and Wikileaks the doctor supplying information to the publisher? According to your argument, wouldnt the resulting fallout be the responsibility of the news organisations that received the leaks, and their 'lack of objectivity' in publishing them?

quote: Doing everything they can to make Assange look bad in the public eye!

Who's they?

OpenLeaks was formed by folks who used to be from WikiLeaks.

This is analogous to members of an open source software project deciding to fork because they didn't agree with the direction or the leadership. (The most recent example is The Document Foundation forking OpenOffice into their own LibreOffice. This is mainly because Oracle killed OpenSolaris in the way it did.)

In the case of online whistle-blowing; Assange has demonstrated that he is using WikiLeaks as a tool for his anti-govt/anti-corporate/anarchist ideals.

Instead of using the power he has to change the world in a good way; he chose to seek the path of chaos. ie: Light the fire, damn the consequences, and see how far it burns.

Its short-term thinking. Its also reckless, because he has created enemies unnecessarily. ie: Having the whole US Govt gunning for you isn't a pleasant experience!

If he was more strategic in his thinking (on a Ghandi level); he would have went for pointing out the injustices of the corrupt and offer a very researched suggestion (maybe impart his wisdom), in how they could change for the better. It could be via an online paper, public/university presentations, etc. But this should NOT be in your typical "crazy advocate" tone such that people laugh and ignore you. It must be wise and understanding...This would get the backing of the masses and cooperation by gaining the moral high ground. (I don't doubt if the cause is just; one would also gain a few celebrities on your side! That's access to another demographic!)

Essentially, I'm saying one doesn't need to destroy the existing system in order to destroy corruption. A mature/wise person would use the information they have to get people to re-think and change. The goal is to use the power of cooperation in a good way. (I rather turn an enemy into a friend, than continually make even more powerful enemies.)

Think about it: if you are anti-corporate, wouldn't it be easier to put the CEO in a position where he chooses to talk to you on his own accord? To actually have the person who can make the difference, listen to you and change their company's direction? (It certainly beats mindlessly protesting...Which to be honest, is ineffective in today's world.)

My overall point?

Assange is trying to change things by applying chaos on the system. The system will respond by fighting back.

I'm saying change the system by getting people to understand and realise they can do things differently. Use the system, but apply leadership to change for the better.

You just think they're bias because you're a wing nut. The only one with slant is MSNBC. The rest are basically something in between Fox and MSNBC and may favor who had the better PR guy (more like best PR guy with network hook ups).

Get over it. It's not actually liberal. Fox is certainly neocon though, by their own admission.

Great post I read the article. But your almost wasting your time pointing out facts to a lefty. Already any lefty reading this is rationalizing and making excuses for how they think, in a self delusional attempt to keep their world view intact. Fox news is bashed constantly by the indoctrinated left. They have had a lifetime of hearing bias from the left sided media to a point that now the left has become their point of reference for what they believe is the truth. So when the actual truth comes out it appears to be right wing. Facts are just a inconvenience to a lefty, its like being told your husband is cheating on you but you refuse to believe it even when presented with the truth, and then you make excuses for him.

What left sided media are you talking about? There's a right side, a centre, and no left side in the American media. The left side was taken out decades ago during the routing of communists in the US.

Left is about responsibility and freedom. Right is about Jesus and killing or imprisoning everyone else.

You don't have the truth. You have a Bible. Ironically, Christianity has nothing to do with the Bible and a lot more to do with the Roman Paganism from two thousand years ago. Hard to imagine folks still believe in all that junk and want to force it and the belief system on everyone.

LOL. Exactly. I am in my mid thirties. I grew up with all the mumbo jumbo liberal educational teachings of the US public school systems. For a long time my views of the world and politics were very slanted and narrow mindedly left. I wore the "Liberal" tag like a Superman ensignia. If you are not a Liberal Lefty like me, you are the enemy. It wasn't until my late twenties when my brain really started working and I questioned my stance - why I am so hateful towards non-liberals and leftys and why am I so just, hateful? I started researching and finding answers for myself that I learned, what I was taught and brainwashed in school, was not the truth but a perspective into the truth. Now when I look back at it all, I acted exactly like these Fox News bashers and misguided liberals nowadays - granted I do not ever watch Fox News nor any news outlet anymore. And no, I am not a republican. It is sad to see the kids of the US and the US's future leaders, having to go through all the liberal media institutions and get brainwashed.

On topic, as I have stated and others have before, "Wikileaks" has and always been Assange's revenge tool against the US from the begining. You cannot circumvent that stance on Assange and Wikileaks with these latest events.

I'm a pretty committed right-winger. I think the value in Fox News is their willingness (drive?) to run stories that the other outlets won't run. However, every time I turn on Fox News, it seems that's ALL they run. I know that's not really true - they run most of the 'regular' news stories too.

Does that mean I prefer CNN or MSNBC? No. But I think anyone who only gets their news from only one source isn't doing themselves any favors. Usually it doesn't matter what news is on - I end up yelling at the TV because it's so obvious they're trying to deceive us with misleading statistics and emotion-driven stories that mean jack-squat. All the while I can't help but wonder what the real news is that they're trying to hide from us by running this crap. That goes for pretty much all news organizations, in my book.

I really believe what makes a news outlet slanted is less about what they will run and more about what they won't run. And I think Fox News is just as bad as the left-leaning news orgs (and yes, I also believe the majority are left-leaning). My advice would be to watch a good mix and decide for yourself when they're being straight and when they're bending the truth or hiding info from you. You may not like Fox but if you ignore Fox entirely you're probably missing something. Just like if you watch nothing BUT fox, you're missing stuff too.

Wanting sites like wikileaks to choose and filter their information is misguided. That function is already carried out by governments, mainstream media, corporate boards, and the like. The point of wikileaks is they are NOT going to play Big Brother and make their own decisions about what the common citizenry should and shouldn't know. The philosophy is, governments SHOULD be of, by, and for the people. Secrets, aside from in times of war, have no place in such a world. This attitude is NOT something that should be naively and disparagingly labeled as "anarchism". It is an extension of the very same high ideals that have led us steadily toward better governmental structures and away from totalitarian and other pure power-based arrangements since the dawn of civilization.

Wanting sites like wikileaks to choose and filter their information is misguided. That function is already carried out by governments, mainstream media, corporate boards, and the like. The point of wikileaks is they are NOT going to play Big Brother and make their own decisions about what the common citizenry should and shouldn't know. The philosophy is, governments SHOULD be of, by, and for the people. Secrets, aside from in times of war, have no place in such a world. This attitude is NOT something that should be naively and disparagingly labeled as "anarchism". It is an extension of the very same high ideals that have led us steadily toward better governmental structures and away from totalitarian and other pure power-based arrangements since the dawn of civilization.

ABR, I agree totally. The fact is that outside of secrets for very short periods when operations are currently ongoing and would be endangered by lack of secrecy, the government should not be allowed to have any secrets.

Even then, after the operation in question is done, redact and release to the American people the information about the operation in question, and take the knocks on the noggin if the United States citizenry or the citizenry of your country X doesn't like what you are doing in their name.

To allow secrecy allows things like the Tuskegee Experiements, Bay of Pigs, and My Lai to happen or go unpunished for longer than they should.